"Enough riddles!" Kiara snapped, her hands balled into fists at her sides. "You brought me here, didn't you? You were wearing Kyrin's face! Was Kyrin ever really kidnapped, or was it just you this whole time? You put me in this stupid dress! The least I deserve is some answers."
"I have many names, and have been called many things," the man replied, fiddling with the knobs on the pipe organ. "Much like this place, in fact. We are neither in my domain nor my father's, but in the space between. Many names, though some have called this realm Castle Oblivion."
"Castle Oblivion?" The name tickled somewhere in the recesses of her memory, but she couldn't place it for the moment.
"As for what I'm talking about, why naturally, all my thought and conversation is bent towards you, my dear. The entire reason for your existence, oh heroine. You must pardon me for breaking the 4th wall, but you were going off-script. Having an epiphany, deviating from my plan, and we simply couldn't have that." He pressed a few chords louder than the others, and Kiara flinched at the volume. "But you needn't fear. Just a little time spent in this place, and you will forget all that you learned. You will return home none the wiser, and all will be as it should.
"The bug world was a failure, yes, but only a minor setback. I can send you to any number of worlds, and then I shall have my prize. You reaching a healthier state of mind would've mucked everything up. Not to mention, I fear you were close to actually convincing that cicada to sing."
"What plans? What do you mean sending me to different worlds?"
"Do you really think that stupid rat could build a time machine so easily?" he sneered. "Build a time machine, and then launch himself to a place where he was not only human sized, but his own likeness was portrayed in an animated movie?" His fingers moved fast as spiders, the song picking up tempo. "The simple fools, they were never traveling through time, they were crossing dimensions. And only by my own will were they able to do so. Everything, everything that has happened has only occurred by my own power and design!" He peered at her over his shoulder. "Even your own birth."
"What the actual hell are you talking about?"
"While your father raised you well and did all the things I needed him to do, he was never your sire. Through my will were you conceived in your mother's womb, though neither she nor he knew it, as she certainly wasn't a virgin and they were already married. And so they believed that you were Mr. Phoenix's true daughter. Your detached earth father, your two rodent godfathers, all of your father figures will continue to increase and compound until the Ultimate Father is made."
Kiara backed away, glancing around the room to any of the identical doors. "What do you mean the 'ultimate father?' And you still haven't told me who you really are."
He laughed. "Can you not guess? We have much in common, regarding disappointing fathers. My own father, you know, cast me out. I was thrown down in a great ball of fire which burned my wings, all because I didn't love Father's little pets the way he wanted me to. As much as I enjoy tormenting the beastlings that fall into my realm, I yearn for vengeance against the Father who turned on me, turned my brothers on me, and who chose to love his lesser humans over his superior angels."
Kiara felt her face grow cold as all the blood rushed from it, her heart sank into her stomach, and her knees became jelly. "Y-you, y-you're, no, no no, you can't, y-you—"
"You may call me Luci, for short. I prefer it."